Changing Your Child's Responses

From a stubborn toddler, to a sarcastic teenager – dealing with a difficult child starts with you.
Life Coach and Author Connie Sokol shares ways to change your child’s responses.

When frustrated by a difficult child, changing their response could be easier than you think.
1. Learn your child’s love language. Author Gary Chapman says the five main ways we show or receive love are quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. The key is finding out your particular child’s need and then filling it, not with what you want but what they need.
2. Write a Love List about your child. Whether you struggle with them or not, write a list of only their positive traits, even if it’s “Did not kick the dog today”. When I spoke at Education Week two moms talked with me: one said a positive was when she actually knew where her son was at night; the other said when she hugged her son and he didn’t smell like marijuana. Every Love List will be different. If needed go back to journal entries, or even to birthing them! Do it and add to it often, this works to help you focus on the positive and cultivate it in that child.
3. Help them find their niche. Children can be difficult often because they feel lost in the family or life and don’t know where they fit. Sometimes they try to be just like a sibling, at other times completely opposite. So help them find one thing they’re good at. The confidence and success they feel will domino effect into other areas of their lives which they can build on in the future. (Think Napoleon Dynamite in the last scene with his big dance number—suddenly people are cheering for him, suddenly he found a niche). Michael Landon, beloved actor and director of Little House on the Prairie series, struggled in his youth with an abusive home life and low self- esteem. In high school, he was a chronic bedwetter, had facial tics, and made involuntary gulping sounds. But then in gym class he threw a javelin for the first time and threw it 30 feet farther than anyone else. He said, “On that day, I had found something I could do better than other people. Something I could grab on to. And I grabbed.” So we can help our children experiment with different abilities then nurture the ones they love or see success with, and give them something to hold onto. As they gain confidence, they become more peaceful and happy within themselves.
This week change the way you interact with your child, and you might pleasantly surprised to positively amazed at the change in him or her, and your relationship.

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